


is anybody answering you?

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Season/Series 02, no Maveth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9242192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: It's always so nice knowing something SHIELD doesn't.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Halsey's "Garden."

This is a major disappointment. Grant’s ashamed, really he is. If it’d been May or even Skye who got the drop on him, that’d be one thing, but _Hunter_?

“See, I got the okay from Coulson to put a bullet in your skull,” the son of a bitch says, circling slowly just out of reach, “but I’m not sure I want to make it that fast.”

Grant tries to move his leg again. He got caught in it when the damn ceiling caved in and now he’s _stuck_. He thinks he can wriggle out of his boot but that’ll take time. So it’s lucky for him Hunter seems so reluctant to cross him off right away.

“Really?” he asks, putting on a bright smile. “I hope Morse is here then; she could probably give you a few-”

Hunter makes the monumental mistake of rushing him to press the gun against his forehead. Grant’s still trapped, but it takes seconds for him to get the gun away and knock Hunter to the ground beside him.

“Not so fast.” May.

Grant curses in Italian. A lot.

Hunter grabs back the gun and scrambles to his feet while May comes around to where Grant can see her.

“I was just telling him,” Hunter pants like he didn’t just make a fool of himself, “that I didn’t wanna put him out of his misery so fast.”

“Can’t say I blame you.” May’s stone cold bitch face is a lot stonier and bitchier than Grant remembers. He thinks maybe it has something to do with her ex leaving her high and dry in paradise and lets the thought make him smile. “I know I always enjoy wiping that smirk off his face.”

The reminder of all the times she’s beaten him would be more effective if she had the upper hand now. Which she doesn’t. “I hate to ruin your fun,” he says, “but you’re gonna let me go.”

Hunter barks out a laugh, but May’s smart enough to know he’s got something up his sleeve. “And why would we do that?” she asks.

He shifts to one side. It makes it easier to reach into his pants pocket and to hide that he’s twisting his foot around the heel of his boot. The guns shift up from their casual aim at his chest and he lifts his other hand. “Whoa whoa. It’s just my phone.” It’s snatched away the second he has it out. He grits his teeth in annoyance. “Check the recent texts.”

“Am I looking for anything in particular or will it stand out amidst all the _hail HYDRA_ s?”

Grant doesn’t bother to answer the question; he can see on Hunter’s face he’s found the right message. His expression’s tight, lips a thin line. Hell, he even starts shaking once he opens the attached image.

Grant’s phone drops to the floor and Hunter’s gun comes up. “What the hell did you do to her you sick fuck?”

All that righteous fury is enough to freak May out. Grant enjoys the show while she backs Hunter up, forcing him away until he focuses on her. And the second he does, Grant grabs the phone and darts through the rubble.

It’s not fun climbing over piles of fallen beams and glass and ceiling tiles with only one shoe, and he’s sure to hear the riot act for it later, but he’s not about to stop. It’s even odds whether Hunter - or May once she gets the story out of him - will let him get out the threat he planned on following up the photo with or just shoot him and be done with it. Best to get as far as he can before they regroup.

He comes around a corner too fast, barely marks the guns coming up before they lower. It’s alpha team.

“Where have you been?” he demands amidst the respectful chorus of _sir_ s.

“Looking for you,” Markham says, giving him a critical once-over. Grant knows he looks like shit - he’s covered in dust and can feel the glass shards in his hair, he’ll probably be bruised all over tomorrow - but he’s standing and SHIELD’s far behind. He gives a brief motion with his hand, which Markham identifies immediately as an order to back off, leave the exam for later.

“SHIELD’s probably behind me,” Grant orders tersely. Aldridge and Ortilla immediately move to check out the situation he left behind. “Somebody give me a weapon. And Hicks? Gimme your left boot.”

Grant can _feel_ Aldridge’s annoyance that she has to leave this conversation when it’s just gotten started.

“Uh, sir?” Hicks asks.

Grant sighs. The problem with having favorites is that they read into shit. Right now Hicks is probably trying to figure out what he did to incur Grant’s wrath when the truth is this is pure practicality. “You’re my size. Now hand it over.”

“ _Man_ ,” Hicks mutters - along with some less respectful words - but he hands over the boot.

“We get what we came for?” Grant asks while he tightens the laces.

“Loaded up and already on its way,” Markham reports. “We’re just playing games with SHIELD while we look for you.”

“Good.” No way he was gonna leave without it, and now he knows there’s no reason to keep tempting fate by sticking around. He’s sure, once word gets back to Coulson, the order on him will shift from kill to capture, but emotions are gonna be running high today and he’d rather not run into SHIELD again until that order changes. He moves out, trusting the others to fall in with him. “Call ahead, tell Kebo to engage Helen procedures.”

“Helen?” Markham pauses, letting that sink in. “So SHIELD knows.”

“Yep.”

“Was it worth the risk?”

Grant thinks back on Hunter’s impotent rage and the angry purple creeping up his neck as May pushed him away. “Oh yeah. Definitely.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

As expected, the garage at Nemesis base is chaos when he gets there. He can’t be more than ten minutes behind Kebo since Helen meant a detour for him and it shows. The package is fine, secure, but Grant doesn’t give a shit about it right now, he’s zeroed in on the five-foot-four hurricane currently making Kebo question his life choices.

Good man that he is, he jumps to his feet the second he sees Grant and gets waved off for his troubles. “I got it,” Grant says.

“Oh, well then,” Jemma says, “if you’ve ‘got it’ then by all means. Just sweep in, take control, upend months of work.”

He steps in close to her, catching her hips before she can think to walk away. “Jem,” he says patiently. Her people are still working silently around them. Mousy scientists in white coats scurry every which way, trying to unload the samples and equipment she deemed too important to leave the Tarsus base without. He’d laugh at the sheer scale of it all - it’s not like they abandoned the base, they can always send back for anything they’ve forgotten - but the stiff way she stands between his hands tells him that’d be the wrong move.

“You could’ve warned me,” she snaps peevishly.

“I did,” he says. “Four months ago I told you exactly what the Helen procedures entailed.”

As it always does, the name of the protocol has her lips curling in a faint smile. The name of the most beautiful woman in Greek mythology for the protection of the most beautiful woman in Grant’s world. Or that’s what he told her. Not that it’s untrue, but he’s thinking it more appropriate since Jemma’s will probably launch a thousand quinjets.

She goes soft and vulnerable against him and he wraps his arms around her waist, stealing a little more of her space. “They’re coming for me,” she says softly.

“Not yet,” he says, “but they know you’re with us now. Nemesis is the most secure base I’ve got.” He rests his forehead against hers. “I have to keep you safe.”

If she has any other objections, that’ll put an end to ’em. She knows how he lost Kara, knows he still comes awake biting his own tongue to hold back her name; she won’t fight him on this.

“But I can still work?” she presses.

He lets himself believe that’s just the same old Jemma, can’t stop working so long as she can stand (and sometimes even when she can’t) and laughs. “Yeah, you can still work.”

She beams and he has to hold tight to keep her from spinning out of his arms to get started.

“But right now,” he says while she tries to break his hold, “I wanna get settled in our new quarters and I kind of need someone to look at my foot.”

Concern lights up her features and in a matter of minutes he’s sitting on their new bed, his tac gear piled messily on the floor, and a very pretty doctor tsking over his foot. It looks worse than it is, with the dried blood and torn up sock. Honestly, the worst part is her taking out the splinters of wood and glass, and he tells her so.

“I would’ve thought the worst part was sustaining the injury in the first place.” She’s distracted, so any venom she might’ve injected into the statement is missing.

“Yeah, well, I was kind of in a hurry.” He winces in pain as another shard comes free.

“Tell me,” she says.

It’s a ploy to get him thinking about something other than the pain and one he happily allows to work. He tells her about the fight with Hunter, the ceiling coming down for no apparent reason - Skye, she says knowingly, her expression dark and distant, and he hurries to the stand-off before she can drift too far.

“I only had one trump card,” he says apologetically. “So I told them what would happen to you if I didn’t make it back.”

She looks at him from under her brows while wiping away the last of the blood with a damp cloth. “Oh? And what was that? Would I be tortured?”

“Definitely,” he says, straight-faced, “lots of long, lonely nights.”

She isn’t nearly so composed and a giggle slips out. “I’m not so sure about that. There are plenty of men around here who would be happy-”

“To have their kneecaps blown off, sure.”

She bites her lip on a grin.

“You laugh now,” he says, leaning forward to draw her to him now that he’s all fixed up, “but Markham and Kebo are loyal to me, they’ll cripple anyone who even looks at you while I’m gone.”

She comes easily into his lap. “But not kill?”

“Oh no. I’ll want to see them when I get back.” He lets his voice drop to that low register she loves and slides a hand up her side, beneath her shirt.

“So confident,” she says, somewhat breathlessly. He can feel her heart pounding. “You really think SHIELD would let you go?”

“I can be very convincing.”

She drags her nails along his scalp. “Prove it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

He doesn’t move until she’s gone and then it’s just to look at the clock. Four hours. She hadn’t slept in thirty before he left on the mission and after that workout he gave her, she barely slept for _four_.

She’s getting worse.

He grabs his phone and shoots off a text to Markham asking if the package is secure. When he gets an affirmative back, he orders him to move it back to Tarsus. Jemma won’t miss it - she doesn’t even know what it is he went looking for - but she’ll definitely notice a science team that’s completely outside her management, working on a project she knows nothing about.

That done, he sends a text to Repin with orders to take another look through those files, see if she can’t track down another one of these things. If HYDRA has more, he wants them all. And maybe even the big one Coulson’s got locked up somewhere, but that’s only if the others don’t get him anything.

He scrolls through his text, coming to the one that pissed Hunter off so bad. He wishes he could be a fly on the wall in the debrief when he tries to describe the photo to Coulson.

It’s Jemma, just Jemma in all her naked glory, head falling back off the edge of their bed back at Tarsus and a brilliant smile on her lips while she tries to entice him to come upstairs to bed. Sexy as it is, it’s also a comfort. After a couple months, Grant realized he was the one always coming to her, dragging her off to bed, only for her to leave first. Every time. So he put her off for a few days, kept himself busy - but always in meetings on base, never anywhere far from her - until she sent this. So at least now he knows she can want him unprovoked.

He blacks the screen and tosses the phone onto the nightstand. SHIELD won’t find her here and it’s only a matter of time before his people figure out what the monolith did to her. And then … and then he’ll have to decide if he really wants to undo it.

But that’s a trouble for another day.

 


End file.
